The next morning Johnny kept his boxing appointment with Gwen. It was after a half hour of strenuous work, while they were resting on a mat, that she turned to him suddenly and said, in a low voice:

“A strange thing happened last night.”

“What was that?”

“I was awakened from my sleep. I had been dreaming of a fire, and I would have sworn that it was a flash of red light that awakened me.”

“That’s strange.” Johnny’s tone told nothing.

“What is stranger still, two other girls were awakened in the same manner.”

“You had upper berths?”

“Yes.”

“There were glass ventilator windows above you?”

“Yes.”

“Probably the light from a switch tower shining in.”

“It was too bright for that. It was so bright it was crimson. It was like—it was like the crimson flash that fell on the tiger that other night!”

“That was strange,” Johnny smiled, but his smile told nothing.

He was not surprised when, as he met Pant a half hour later, the strange fellow said to him in a matter-of-fact tone:

“It’s the slim girl, the one that rides bareback, Millie, what is it they call her?”

“Millie Gonzales.”

“She’s the one. She’s got your ring.”

“I thought you might know,” Johnny said quietly.

Pant shot him a quick glance. “Somebody been talking?”

“Not so you’d need be alarmed. But, say, now I know she’s got it, how am I to get it from her?”

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